Glimmering (30 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Hand
“Perhaps.” In her lap the pug snorted, and she stroked his head. “Have you tried to find his family?”
Martin shrugged, uncomfortable. “Yes. But how can I? He won’t say anything, I mean he won’t tell me where he’s from, who they are . . .”
Outside, in the endless shifting twilight, branches tapped against the windows, overgrown lilacs that Mrs. Grose was afraid to prune lest they never grow back. The pug yawned. Mrs. Grose shifted on the couch, cradling her brandy against her chest. “Why are you keeping him, Martin?”
He started to respond testily, but stopped. A candle sputtered, then went out. “Where could he go? If he left here—”
“He is not like you, Martin,” she said gently. “He does not have a disease. He seems strong enough, strong in the body. It would be cruel to keep him here, Martin.”
Martin ran a hand through his long greying hair. He whispered, “I know. I know. But where could he go?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not to us. I know it’s hard, Martin. It’s because you saved him—”
“I didn’t—”
“He would have died there, if not for you.” She stood, the pug tumbling from her lap with an affronted groan, and crossed the room to lay a hand upon his shoulder. “You saved him, Martin. And for some reason he’s still alive. But he has to go . . .”
“Reason?” The face Martin lifted to her was raw with despair. “What reason can there be? What?”
Mrs. Grose sighed. She stared past him, to where the lilacs scratched at the panes. “I do not know. Maybe none,” she said, and stooped to pick up the gasping pug. “But you must act as though there is one, anyway. Good night, my dear—”
She lowered her head to kiss him, leaving a breath of brandy and Sen-Sen upon his cheek. Her tortoiseshell eyes seemed bleary, not with that vague distant expression Martin knew so well but with something more disturbing. Genuine weariness, the detached surrender of great age to a well-earned sleep, or more.
“Adele? Are you all right? Do you feel bad?” His voice was unsteady: he had never asked her that.
“Just tired,” she replied, and began to walk heavily toward her room. “Just tired. That’s all.”
He went the next day to the beach alone. Trip seemed content to sit in the living room, gazing at the expensive array of stereo and video equipment that had been John’s.
“Sometimes it works.” Martin picked up a remote and tentatively pressed a few buttons. “But not today, I guess. I’ll be back in a while. Okay?”
Trip nodded without looking up. “Okay.”
The wind was from the north, bearing with it the acrid scent of burning. He had heard there were fires along the border in Canada, started by renegade environmentalists: the kind of vague rumors passed amongst the denizens of the Beach Store more freely than currency. Certainly there was fire somewhere—the air cloaked in a thick yellowish haze that stung the eyes and throat and nearly made Martin turn back.
But he did not, and by the time he reached the shore the wind had shifted again, and the smoke dispersed, leaving only a dank foul smell. His eyes moved restlessly across the ground as he walked, longing to find something familiar, yearning for it as Martin had never dreamed possible. Fallen white-pine branches pressed into the mud, their green fans mimicking gingkoes; ferns; new growth beneath the sickly mulch of leaves and yellowing birch bark. Everywhere he looked he saw a world robbed of color save for a lurid yellow burst of lichen upon an oak tree, the mauve carpet of wintergreen leaves, and copper-green scraping of tamaracks against the sky. Brazen sky, guilty sky, with its stolen hues like rippling pennons, grass-green, luminous orange, periwinkle blue. It sickened him, and he hurried on.
Alongside the decrepit boathouse the
Wendameen
sat up on blocks, tarp flapping. Gaps in the plastic covering showed where the wooden hull needed to be scraped and repainted, seams that needed to be filled, floats replaced. Martin looked away, thinking how long it had been since he worked on the boat—a year? Two? It wouldn’t be worth salvaging if he didn’t get to it soon. He knew he never would.
Wendameen
sat up on blocks, tarp flapping. Gaps in the plastic covering showed where the wooden hull needed to be scraped and repainted, seams that needed to be filled, floats replaced. Martin looked away, thinking how long it had been since he worked on the boat—a year? Two? It wouldn’t be worth salvaging if he didn’t get to it soon. He knew he never would.
From high up in a scraggly red oak a woodpecker clattered. Martin kicked along the beach, miserable but without the accustomed baggage of things that he
knew
made him miserable. He was not thinking of John, he was not thinking of dead friends, he was not thinking of tumors or T cells piling themselves into a caravan and driving off a cliff. He was thinking of Trip Marlowe and the way his long hair fell across his cheek, leaving it half in shadow; of the small protuberant knob in the wrist Martin had set, badly, which was like a stone under the skin. He was thinking of Trip’s eyes, winking blue like a gas jet turned too low; and somewhere behind that he was thinking of Adele Grose’s eyes, how last night they had seemed less vivid, once-bright marbles gone opaque from too much use.
knew
made him miserable. He was not thinking of John, he was not thinking of dead friends, he was not thinking of tumors or T cells piling themselves into a caravan and driving off a cliff. He was thinking of Trip Marlowe and the way his long hair fell across his cheek, leaving it half in shadow; of the small protuberant knob in the wrist Martin had set, badly, which was like a stone under the skin. He was thinking of Trip’s eyes, winking blue like a gas jet turned too low; and somewhere behind that he was thinking of Adele Grose’s eyes, how last night they had seemed less vivid, once-bright marbles gone opaque from too much use.
It would be cruel to keep him here, Martin . . .
His foot struck savagely at a stone.
But I’m
not
keeping him . . .
But I’m
not
keeping him . . .
But you are, you are . . .
the gulls answered. He stooped and grabbed a rock, hurled it at the sky. The birds dived as it plummeted into the red-streaked sea. He could feel rage building inside him like a fever, even as he turned and headed back to the cottage. He shoved the door open with such force that it slammed against the inside wall. Trip looked up from where he sat on the couch, idly turning the pages of a magazine.
the gulls answered. He stooped and grabbed a rock, hurled it at the sky. The birds dived as it plummeted into the red-streaked sea. He could feel rage building inside him like a fever, even as he turned and headed back to the cottage. He shoved the door open with such force that it slammed against the inside wall. Trip looked up from where he sat on the couch, idly turning the pages of a magazine.
“Trip.” Martin stood in the middle of the room, panting a little.
“Do you need to go somewhere? I mean away from here—do you want to go?”
The boy gazed at him with calm blue eyes. “New York,” he said after a moment.
“New
York?”
York?”
Trip nodded. “She—I think that’s where she is. That’s where I met her. New York.”
“New York.” Martin sank onto the couch beside him, shaking his head. “You mean Manhattan? You were in New York City?”
“Just a few days.”
He waited, but Trip said nothing else; just stared at the magazine in his lap. Finally Martin said, “New York. You’re sure? That’s where you want to go?”
The boy lifted his face. “Yes.”
Martin stared at him. After a moment he reached and gently pushed a lank strand of hair from Trip’s eyes.
“Then I’ll take you,” he said. His gaze passed beyond the boy, to the window that looked down upon the rocky beach where a twenty-six-foot gaff cutter was raised on wooden sawhorses and concrete blocks. He leaned forward, and for an instant hugged the boy’s spare frame to his own, before he felt Trip flinch and start away. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you—wherever you want to go.”
CHAPTER TEN
Heart and Soul
At Lazyland, spring staggered into summer. The daffodils bloomed, rust-streaked, their inner horns twisted into fantastic shapes, and gave off a scent like lilies. From the tulip poplars a fragrant pollen fell, staining Lazyland’s cracked drive acid green and orange. The sky shivered in its Stygian dance; some mornings, stars appeared amongst the clouds, and sun dogs chased them above the swollen Hudson.
When news reached Lazyland it seemed like a mishandled communiqué from another century: plague vaccines that caused mass hallucinations; children awaiting spaceships upon the Golden Gate Bridge; Disney World seized by tattooed militia wearing animal masks, who took orders from a teenage girl in combat uniform and a Blue Antelope T-shirt. Militias and strange millennial cults begetting their own plagues, their own viruses, electronic and corporeal; their own rites and rhythms of destruction, their own precarious groynes and parapets thrown up against what was immanent, and imminent.
. . . the end of the end, the end of the end . . .
Jack would stand upon the mansion’s grand old porch, surrounded by ancient furniture and his grandfather’s telescopes, and stare across the river to the ruined Sparkle-Glo factory, black and gold and crimson in the night. In the carriage house the fax machine would now and then stir, like a restless sleeper, then spew forth press releases detailing myriad magnanimous ventures spearheaded by The Golden Family. Snow leopard DNA encoded on the head of a pin, test launches of the dirigible fleet that would tow SUNRA to its place in the poisoned sky. The archival purchase, for $3.3 million U.S., of the historic American literary magazine
The Gaudy Book.
During these electrical intermissions the answering machine would blink and beep, and Leonard’s voice would hail Jack from London or Voronezh or the Waterton Glacier. Mrs. Iverson would do laundry and make toast. From somewhere within Lazyland a radio cried out with more strange bulletins. Fragments of pop music and
Gotterdämmerung;
the advertising slogan for GFI’s new global network: Only Connect. A new song that got extraordinary airplay, considering the broken bandwidths one had to gyre through these days—
The Gaudy Book.
During these electrical intermissions the answering machine would blink and beep, and Leonard’s voice would hail Jack from London or Voronezh or the Waterton Glacier. Mrs. Iverson would do laundry and make toast. From somewhere within Lazyland a radio cried out with more strange bulletins. Fragments of pop music and
Gotterdämmerung;
the advertising slogan for GFI’s new global network: Only Connect. A new song that got extraordinary airplay, considering the broken bandwidths one had to gyre through these days—
I possess the keys of hell and death,
I will give you the morning star:
The end of the end, the end of the end . . .
Jack kept watch, listening as he fingered the vial of Fusax in his pocket, holding it up to the light to measure its diminished contents and praying that it might, somehow, be enough. He heard the
fellahin
laughing in Untermeyer Park, marked the progress of a dirigible moving slowly through the clouds. He looked at his hands. He was losing weight. His sight was strained as well; bright shapes flitted at the corner of his eyes, and sometimes he heard voices that did not arise from radios or rooms within the house.
fellahin
laughing in Untermeyer Park, marked the progress of a dirigible moving slowly through the clouds. He looked at his hands. He was losing weight. His sight was strained as well; bright shapes flitted at the corner of his eyes, and sometimes he heard voices that did not arise from radios or rooms within the house.
But at the same time it was as though some new and more subtle sense filled him, even as his old ones faltered. He felt the century round him hurtling harum-scarum toward its end: an infortuitous concourse of atoms, a runaway train slamming into the roundhouse with everything it contained slingshot skyward: quarks, drag queens,
The King and I
, Einstein, Telstar, Hitler, mustard gas, Thomas Mann, Jerry Mahoney, Victor Frankl, IBM and AT&T and GFI. He felt his blood quicken, hearing footsteps in the parlor, unseen musicians tuning up for the grand finale.
The King and I
, Einstein, Telstar, Hitler, mustard gas, Thomas Mann, Jerry Mahoney, Victor Frankl, IBM and AT&T and GFI. He felt his blood quicken, hearing footsteps in the parlor, unseen musicians tuning up for the grand finale.
And, finally, one afternoon he entered the carriage house to find a fax scrolled onto the floor: yet another missive from GFI. SUNRA was to be set aloft six months hence, on the evening of December 31, from GFI’s pyramid in Times Square. Gala celebration, many celebrities, at especial request of Yukio Tatsumi the presence of your company is desired. At the very bottom there was a scrawled addendum to the corporation’s formal invitation.
FYI: New Year’s Eve, 1999: Will I see you there? RSVP, regrets only. With very warm regards, Larry Muso.
The next morning, Jack went downstairs. He found the blond girl in the kitchen, eating stale Cheerios with his grandmother and Mrs. Iverson. More of his aunt Mary Anne’s clothes had been found for her, a pair of corduroy bell-bottom trousers, too long and cuffed around her ankles, and a bright red plaid flannel shirt. Her hair had not been combed; it stuck out around her head in a ragged white halo, and once again Jack marveled at his grandmother’s self-control during these last few months, that she hadn’t attacked the girl with a brush and scissors. Otherwise, Marz seemed alarmingly well behaved. She murmured “hello” to Jack as he poured himself some of the brown bitter liquid that passed for coffee, and said “thank you” when Mrs. Iverson handed her a napkin.
Still, her presence at the table never failed to unsettle Jack. He poked desultorily at his Cheerios with a spoon, pouring a thin stream of powdered milk dissolved in water into the center. He forced himself to eat, imagining Jule and Emma at their breakfast table sixty miles to the north, with the remains of whatever frugal harvest they’d taken from Emma’s garden, dried apples and cherries, blueberries and black walnuts. It was an image that usually fortified him. This morning it only made him sad, seeing Marz in the chair where Jule and Emma’s young daughter Rachel had once perched. He finished his Cheerios quickly and excused himself, setting the empty bowl in the sink. There was electricity today: he let hot water dribble from the tap into his bowl, inhaling the steam as though it were perfume.
“I’m going out to work,” he said.
At the table three heads turned.
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